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Saturday, September 29, 2012

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Greek police send crime victims to neo-Nazi 'protectors'

Far-right Golden Dawn party filling vacuum for those neglected by state after MPs elected to fight 'immigrant scum'

People hold sacks of
potatoes during a food distribution organised by Golden Dawn, in Athens.

Greece's
far-right Golden Dawn party is increasingly assuming the role of law
enforcement officers on the streets of the bankrupt country, with
mounting evidence that Athenians are being openly directed by police to
seek help from the neo-Nazi group, analysts, activists and lawyers say.
In
return, a growing number of Greek crime victims have come to see the
party, whose symbol bears an uncanny resemblance to the swastika, as a
"protector".
One victim of crime, an eloquent US-trained civil
servant, told the Guardian of her family's shock at being referred to
the party when her mother recently called the police following an
incident involving Albanian immigrants in their downtown apartment
block.

"They immediately said if it's an issue with immigrants go
to Golden Dawn," said the 38-year-old, who fearing for her job and
safety, spoke only on condition of anonymity. "We don't condone Golden
Dawn but there is an acute social problem that has come with the
breakdown of feeling of security among lower and middle class people in
the urban centre," she told the Guardian. "If the police and official
mechanism can't deliver and there is no recourse to justice, then you
have to turn to other maverick solutions."

Other Greeks with
similar experiences said the far-rightists, catapulted into parliament
on a ticket of tackling "immigrant scum" were simply doing the job of a
defunct state that had left a growing number feeling overwhelmed by a
"sense of powerlessness". "Nature hates vacuums and Golden Dawn is just
filling a vacuum that no other party is addressing," one woman lamented.
"It gives 'little people' a sense that they can survive, that they are
safe in their own homes."

Far from being tamed, parliamentary
legitimacy appears only to have emboldened the extremists. In recent
weeks racially-motivated attacks have proliferated. Immigrants have
spoken of their fear of roaming the streets at night following a spate
of attacks by black-clad men on motorbikes. Street vendors from Africa
and Asia have also been targeted.

"For a lot of people in poorer
neighbourhoods we are liberators," crowed Yiannis Lagos, one of 18 MPs
from the stridently patriot "popular nationalist movement" to enter the
300-seat house in June. "The state does nothing," he told a TV chat
show, adding that Golden Dawn was the only party that was helping
Greeks, hit by record levels of poverty and unemployment, on the ground.
Through an expansive social outreach programme, which also includes
providing services to the elderly in crime-ridden areas, the group
regularly distributes food and clothes parcels to the needy.
But
the hand-outs come at a price: allegiance to Golden Dawn. "A friend who
was being seriously harassed by her husband and was referred to the
party by the police very soon found herself giving it clothes and food
in return," said a Greek teacher, who, citing the worsening environment
enveloping the country, again spoke only on condition of anonymity.
"She's a liberal and certainly no racist and is disgusted by what she
has had to do."

The strategy, however, appears to be paying off.
On the back of widespread anger over biting austerity measures that have
also hit the poorest hardest, the popularity of the far-rightists has
grown dramatically with polls indicating a surge in support for the
party.
One survey last week showed a near doubling in the number
of people voicing "positive opinions" about Golden Dawn, up from 12% in
May to 22%. The popularity of Nikos Michaloliakos, the party's
rabble-rousing leader had shot up by 8 points, much more than any other
party leader.
Paschos Mandravelis, a prominent political analyst,
attributed the rise in part to the symbiotic relationship between the
police and Golden Dawn. "Greeks haven't turned extremist overnight. A
lot of the party's backing comes from the police, young recruits who are
a-political and know nothing about the Nazis or Hitler," he said. "For
them, Golden Dawn supporters are their only allies on the frontline when
there are clashes between riot police and leftists."

Riding the
wave, the party has taken steps to set up branches among diaspora Greek
communities abroad, opening an office in New York last week. Others are
expected to open in Australia and Canada. Cadres say they are seeing
particular momentum in support from women.
With Greeks becoming
ever more radicalised, the conservative-led government has also clamped
down on illegal immigration, detaining thousands in camps and increasing
patrols along the country's land and sea frontier with Turkey.

But
in an environment of ever increasing hate speech and mounting tensions,
the party's heavy-handedness is also causing divisions. A threat by
Golden Dawn to conduct raids against vendors attending an annual fair in
the town of Arta this weekend has caused uproar.

"They say they
have received complaints about immigrant vendors from shop owners here
but that is simply untrue," said socialist mayor Yiannis Papalexis.
"Extra police have been sent down from Athens and if they come they will
be met by leftists who have said they will beat them up with clubs. I
worry for the stability of my country."
Seated in her office
beneath the Acropolis, Anna Diamantopoulou, a former EU commissioner,
shakes her head in disbelief. Despair, she says, has brought Greece to a
dangerous place.
"I never imagined that something like Golden
Dawn would happen here, that Greeks could vote for such people," she
sighed. "This policy they have of giving food only to the Greeks and
blood only to the Greeks. The whole package is terrifying. This is a
party based on hate of 'the other'. Now 'the other' is immigrants, but
who will 'the other' be tomorrow?"

.ROCHDALE : A shocking tale unfolds of the asian paedophiles operating in the UK and the reluctance of the Police to do their jobs

Betrayed by the PC brigade: From the Mail writer who first revealed
the scandal of Muslim sex gangs, a damning exposé of how politically
correct police and social workers betrayed underage white victims

For 20 years or more, there has been a
shameful silence about the sexual exploitation of young girls in this
country. Hundreds of children — some of them still at primary school —
have been groomed by street gangs and turned into sex slaves.

And it is still going on today.

When
I have written about this subject after investigations in towns and
cities in the North of England, I have been reviled as a hater of our
immigrant communities in abusive emails, letters and phone calls by
those who continue to deny such things are going on.

For
there is an uncomfortable truth about this abhorrent crime which we
must not flinch from: the majority of girls ensnared by the street gangs
are white, while most of the perpetrators come from the Pakistani and
South Asian communities.

Abusers: The men who took part in a child sex
ring which exploited vulnerable teenage girls (Top row left to right)
Abdul Rauf, Hamid Safi, Mohammed Sajid and Abdul Aziz. (Bottom row left
to right) Abdul Qayyum, Adil Khan, Mohammed Amin and Kabeer Hassan

Of course, the great majority
of people from these communities are decent citizens, and people from
all races are capable of evil.

But
I believe the controversial issue of these street gangs has been swept
under the carpet, regarded as a taboo subject by police officers and
social workers terrified of being labelled racist in ever more
politically correct modern Britain.

Worried
parents alerting social services and police about gangs have been
ignored. NHS health clinics, treating the girls for sexual diseases,
injuries and pregnancies, have sounded the alarm. Yet nothing has been
done.

Teachers
who reported teenage girls with hangovers and bruises taking constant
calls on their mobiles from older men during school hours have been met
with a wall of silence from officialdom.

Frightening: Dozens of children in Rochdale,
pictured, were abused despite the authorities being repeatedly warned
about them being at risk

Mohammed Shafiq, director of the
Lancashire-based Ramadhan Foundation, a charity working for ethnic
harmony, has warned: 'The police are over-cautious because they fear
being branded racist'

Shockingly, one middle-class
father from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, who told social workers that
his 15-year-old daughter had been lured into an underage sex ring based
at a local kebab shop, was told by them that the girl was making a
‘lifestyle’ choice to be a prostitute.

The social services refused to help the teenager escape.

Meanwhile,
the police told the father there was ‘no prospect’ of convicting the
gang members, who drove his daughter to ‘cash-for-sex’ sessions with
scores of Muslim men in rented houses or public car parks all over the
North of England.At
the time, despite her parents raising the alarm and subsequent DNA
swabs from the girl’s underwear directly linking her to one of the gang,
the police did not act and the gang’s members remained free and
continued to sexually abuse her — and many other girls in Rochdale — for
another two years.

As
this father told me just the other day: ‘The police were scared stiff
of being called racist, so for years they didn’t go after these men.

One of many victims: Laura Wilson, 17, from
Rotherham had been groomed by a string of British Pakistanis before she
was stabbed and thrown into a canal to die for informing her abusers'
families of the sexual relationships in June this year

Killer: Ashtiaq Asghar repeatedly stabbed Laura
Wilson (pictured above) and left her to die in a canal, after she told
her abusers families of the sexual exploitation

‘The social workers were just as bad. They were afraid of saying it is a crime against white girls.’

His
is not a lone view. Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Lancashire-based
Ramadhan Foundation, a charity working for ethnic harmony, has warned:
‘The police are over-cautious because they fear being branded racist.
That is wrong. These gangs of men are criminals, and should be treated
as criminals whatever their race.’

But
I have discovered that it is not only the police and social workers who
turn a blind eye. The very agencies set up to help the girls recover
from the abuse are equally reluctant to admit there is a strong racial
element to these hideous crimes.

One
charity, Risky Business, operating in Rotherham, refused to answer any
of my questions on the racial make-up of the men in the sex gangs.

South Yorkshire Police headquarters in Sheffield
where details of the problem of sexual exploitation are revealed in
internal reports prepared by the force

Evil: Abdul Qayyum (left), 43, was sentenced to
five years for conspiracy. Mohammed Amin (right) 45, was handed five
years for conspiracy and sexual assault

At another, the Coalition for the
Removal of Pimping, in Leeds, the chief executive told me: ‘This is a
crime committed by men. We are trying to work in certain communities to
change their attitudes to women. I cannot comment on the race of the
criminals involved.’

This
week, at last, the full truth began to emerge about the cover-up of
crimes Scotland Yard estimates have affected 5,000 British-born
children, the majority girls.

At
least ten towns and cities on both sides of the Pennines have been
particularly plagued by the gangs. Their members get rich because they
can reap four times as much money trading young girls for sex as they
can trading in drugs.

I
have established that in the small city of Blackburn alone, at least
385 girls were groomed by men in a recent two-year period. Sheila
Taylor, chairwoman of the National Working Group for Sexually Exploited
Children and Young People, has told me that this figure will be similar
in any other town of the same size in the North of England or the
Midlands.

Ringleader: Shabir Ahmed was convicted of 30 counts of rape following a two week trial at Manchester Crown Court

What is most shocking is the fact
that a series of new reports show police and social services have missed
hundreds of opportunities to protect the child victims.

Yesterday,
an official review of sexual exploitation of girls in Rochdale —
ordered after the jailing of nine men aged between 22 and 59 for
multiple child sex offences in the town — revealed that 50 children, the
vast majority aged ten to 17, were identified [by the authorities] five
years ago as having ‘clear links to take-away food businesses and to
associated taxi companies’.

The
girls, repeatedly raped, were treated by social workers as ‘wilful’
young teenagers ‘engaging in consensual sexual activity’.

‘When complaints reached the police, their investigations were inadequate,’ the review said.

From
South Yorkshire, confidential documents told the same sorry story. A
police intelligence report compiled in 2010 says thousands of sexual
exploitation crimes against young white and mixed race girls have gone
on in the county.

‘There
is a problem with networks of Muslim offenders both locally and
nationally,’ it reported. ‘This is particularly stressed in Sheffield,
even more so in Rotherham, where there appears to be a significant
problem with Asian males exploiting young white females.’

Yet local police, social workers and councils ignored the growing crisis.

One
white girl in Rotherham, who was sexually abused by one such gang, was —
incongruously — offered lessons in Urdu and Punjabi by social services
to help get her over her ordeal.

According
to the documents, 54 girls in Rotherham were sexually exploited by
three brothers from a ‘British Pakistani’ family. Eighteen of the girls
identified one of the brothers as their ‘boyfriend’, and he had made
several of them pregnant.

Three
brothers from another ‘British Pakistani’ family and 41 associates were
linked to the sexual abuse of another 61 girls in the same area. Denis
MacShane, the local Labour MP, says the serial sexual abuse of young
girls should be a wake-up call for the police, local authorities and
Britain’s Asian community. He is demanding an independent public
inquiry, and blames a ‘misplaced racial sensitivity’ for the crisis.

So
how are such vile crimes taking place in so-called civilised Britain,
and why have such gangs been allowed to flourish so they now believe
they can act with impunity?

Monsters: Abdul Aziz (left), 41, was given nine
years for conspiracy and trafficking for sexual exploitation. Mohammed
Sajid (right), 35, received 12 years tor conspiracy, trafficking, one
count of rape and one count of sexual activity with a child

Scum: Hamid Safi (left), 22, was given four
years for conspiracy and trafficking but not guilty of two counts of
rape. Adil Khan (right), 42, was found guilty of conspiracy and
trafficking for sexual exploitation

‘They are laughing at the police,’
one youth worker in South Yorkshire told me this week. ‘These men may
get called into the police station for a dressing down, but so few are
taken to court.

‘They
now think they are invincible, and, of course, they’re not frightened
of accusing the police of racism themselves if things get tricky for
them. Then everything is dropped.’

At
the heart of the scandal are uncomfortable cultural issues. Many men of
Pakistani heritage believe white girls have low morals compared to
Muslim girls.

The same youth worker explained to me: ‘These girls wear what the men call “slags’ clothing” and show too much of their bodies.’

To
add to this cultural divide, the men are often in loveless arranged
marriages with wives from Pakistan who speak no English. They want to
have sex, and a young virgin free of sexual diseases is the perfect
victim.

Victim: A vulnerable 13-year-old white girl
wrote a letter to herself saying Asian men took her dreams and life away
from her (posed by model)

Gang members are often unemployed, so
have time to groom girls — luring them into a trap which is nearly
always sprung in the same way.

The
girl might be out with her friends in the town centre, often on a
Saturday afternoon. She is bored, and when a group of smiling men pull
up in a flashy car with blaring rap music, she is flattered.

Tanya’s
story illustrates their modus operandi. In 2001, Tanya, a 13-year-old,
became Britain’s youngest mother after she was coerced into becoming the
sex slave of a gang in Yorkshire.

Tanya went to the local secondary school and lived with her single mother in a neat terraced house.

At
the shops one day, a group of men came up to her. They took her off in
their car and plied her with vodka. They gave her a mobile phone to
receive calls from them, and bought her gifts and meals.

After
a week or two, they said they wanted to have sex with her in return.
Frightened of them, she agreed. She became pregnant, but by then she had
slept with so many men from the Pakistani community that she did not
know who the father was.

DNA
tests by police on five of the most likely candidates did not prove
paternity. Two of the gang members who were tested confessed to sleeping
with Tanya when she was 12.

Shockingly, they were never charged with any offence for having sex with an under-age child.

The
birth was hushed up, and the gang got off scot-free. The local council
and social services department then went to the High Court in London and
secured an injunction stopping anyone — including Tanya and her family —
ever talking about the matter again. They have never done so.

The
terrifying question is just how many other girls like Tanya have been
let down by a system that does not dare tell the truth?

Lessons need to be learnt. And they need to be learnt with great urgency.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

South Yorkshire Police deny hiding girls' sex abuse

Denis MacShane said MPs should have been told of the scale of the problem

A
police force has denied withholding information about the scale of
sexual exploitation of girls by gangs of men in South Yorkshire.

The county's force was responding after The Times said
confidential police reports referred to widespread abuse of girls by
Asian men.
Rotherham MP Denis MacShane said police kept secret the abuse from politicians.
South Yorkshire Police said the suggestion it was reluctant to tackle child sexual abuse was wrong.
In November 2010, five Rotherham men were jailed for sexual offences against under-age girls.
Labour MP Mr MacShane said on Monday: "The Rotherham police
exposed, arrested and broke up an evil gang of internal traffickers who
were sent to prison.
"But it is clear that the internal trafficking of barely
pubescent girls is much more widespread and I regret that the police did
not tell Yorkshire MPs about their inquiries." The investigation by The Times
- with access to confidential documents from the police intelligence
bureau, social services and other organisations - alleges widespread
abuse.'Live investigations'
The newspaper said a confidential 2010 report by the Police
Intelligence Bureau detailed "a significant problem with networks of
Asian males exploiting young white females, particularly in Rotherham
and Sheffield".
The paper claimed that in another confidential report in 2010
from Rotherham Safeguarding Children Board "there are sensitivities of
ethnicity with potential to endanger the harmony of community
relationships".
Mr MacShane said the sexual violation and commercial
exploitation of young girls by older men was a "growing problem and
needs far more public policy attention".

Five men were jailed in 2010 for sex offences against girls as young as 12 in Rotherham

In a statement, the force said: "South Yorkshire Police is
recognised as leading the way on what is now being recognised nationally
as a problem and to suggest that the force and its partners are
deliberately withholding information on the issue is a gross distortion
and unfair on the teams of dedicated specialists working to tackle the
problem."
It said the force was "working with local authorities, social
services and NHS on several live investigations, two of which are large
and likely to lead to more prosecutions; we will act when we have the
evidence".
The statement added that The Times was "wrong to suggest a lack of commitment is shown towards the problem as our record shows".
In a statement Rotherham Borough Council said it was "fully
committed" to tackling sexual exploitation, "a commitment that led to
the conviction of men involved in this despicable crime as well as
support for victims and potential victims and the education of hundreds
of young people about the dangers of sexual exploitation".
"These are highly-complex cases and situations and some work
with individuals did not lead to court cases for a variety of reasons,
but those young people have been supported to understand the situation
they have found themselves in and assisted by many services".

NWN: The Police are liars ! In other places like Rochdale and in Blackpool to name just two recent examples, the Police are absolutely terrified of being labelled racist. And they will lie to confuse why they have been following the policy they have. Far better that ordinary people get raped and murdered than the police be called racist.

They are a disgrace, and we need to find out who has been directing police policy. Or rather why they have been slavishly following marxist politically correct policies.

MacShane is himself a marxist of the worst kind.

The Police have known about these crimes for many years, but have been prepared to turn 'a blind eye' and allow criminality to flourish in the interest of 'community relations'.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

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Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole: Nursing's Bitter Rivalry

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In recent years the reputation of Mary Seacole as
a pioneering nurse of the Crimean War has been elevated far beyond the
bounds of her own ambition. Meanwhile that of Florence Nightingale has
taken an undeserved knocking, as Lynn McDonald explains.

Portrait
of Mary Seacole wearing medals (never awarded to her) of the British
Crimea, the Turkish Medjidie and the Légion d'honneur, 1869Jamaican-born
Mary Seacole (1805-81), voted top of the list of the 2004 ‘100 Great
Black Britons’ poll, is now slated to replace Florence Nightingale
(1820-1910) as the true ‘heroine’ of the Crimean War. She is to be
honoured as no less than the ‘Pioneer Nurse’ with a massive statue to be
erected at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. This in spite of the strong
links between Nightingale and the hospital, her base for over 40 years.
It was there she established the first secular school for nurses in 1860
with funds raised in her name for her work in the Crimean War during
the conflict of 1854-56. The Nightingale School operated for over a
century from the hospital, whose redesign in the 1860s Nightingale also
influenced.
At three-metres high, as the Seacole campaign points
out, the planned monument designed by Martin Jennings will be visible
from the Houses of Parliament across the Thames and taller than the
statue of Nightingale at Waterloo Place and that of Edith Cavell in St
Martin’s Lane.
Fundraising for the Seacole statue is supported by
an audacious campaign, employing the same Seacole myths used to persuade
the Guy’s-St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to give over the hospital
site. This permission was granted by its board of directors at a
closed-door meeting in 2007, with no consultation with experts, the
hospital’s governors or staff. The Lambeth Planning Committee, which
approved the site at a meeting in April 2012, had no mandate to consider
the merits of the statue or its message but only the technicalities of
site, about which there was no objection.
The ‘history’ issued by
the Guy’s-St Thomas’ NHS Trust in support of its decision brings
several, now standard, fictions together. It credits Seacole with
providing ordinary soldiers in the Crimean War ‘with accommodation, food
and nursing care’ and with winning four medals for her ‘courage and
compassion during the war’. It fails to mention any hospital in which
Seacole ever nursed, trained or sent nurses, but simply asserts that
‘Britain’s black heroine’ gave her ‘life’s work’ for the ‘early
development’ of nursing (Karen Sorenson, ‘Mary Seacole Memorial Statue
Update’, July 20th, 2011).
The statue is to show Seacole with
medals won for bravery, resolutely walking to the battlefield to treat
the wounded, all points that feature in the makeover myth but do not
survive a reality check. Seacole won no medals, nor ever claimed to have
done so. She evidently wore three or four medals when back in London,
including the Légion d’honneur. It was not at the time a crime in the UK
to wear military medals other than one’s own – it has been since 1955.
Pictures
speak louder than words. Many images of Seacole now depict her as a
hospital nurse in a blue-and-white uniform. Black nurses today could
well identify with this current portrayal of Seacole – she looks like an
early version of a Jamaican NHS nurse. Yet she never wore any hospital
uniform, for she never worked in a hospital. In the Crimea she dressed
flamboyantly, as befitted the hostess of a restaurant.
White guilt
is the likely explanation of this Seacole promotion and British whites
have a lot to feel guilty about. Keenness for a heroic black role model
is understandable, but why the denigration of another woman? Seacole
herself had no grudge against Nightingale.

The vilification of Nightingale

The
campaign promoting Seacole over Nightingale builds on 30 years of
books, articles and films denigrating the latter. While she always had
detractors, the serious assault on Nightingale’s reputation can be dated
to 1982, with the publication of the Australian historian F.B. Smith’s Florence Nightingale: Reputation and Power (Croom Helm, 1982). The next major hit came in 1998 with Florence Nightingale: Avenging Angel
(Constable, 1998) by a retired management consultant Hugh Small, which
argues that Nightingale was actually responsible for the high death
rates of the Crimean War and had a nervous breakdown as a result when
she supposedly recognised this. Neither claim is supported by any
serious documentation. Social media goes even further: see Facebook
‘Florence Nightingale was a Murdering Bitch’, later renamed ‘Florence
Nightingale: The World’s Worst Nurse’, where she is described as a
‘deluded power hungry bitch’, who ‘looks like an uptight bitch’, so that
‘the day she died’ was ‘the best thing that ever happened to the field
of nursing’.
The nursing profession was not responsible for either
of the influential anti-Nightingale books, but neither did it defend
her against them. It had been ignoring its founder for a long time; we
look to the future, not to the past, nursing leaders said. Some jumped
onto the bandwagon.The Nursing Standard, a magazine
owned by the Royal College of Nursing, which supports the Seacole statue
campaign, has published more than 70 items on Seacole in the last ten
years, many containing exaggerated or false claims. To quote just three
examples:
‘Against all odds, [Seacole] had an unshakeable belief
in the power of nursing to make a difference,’ and ‘changed the face of
modern nursing’ (April 21st, 2004); Seacole: the ‘late, great nurse,’
through her ‘amazing acts of bravery and courage,’ was ‘a precursor to
modern nursing’, who ‘saw beyond hospital wards and into the environment
in which people live, and made links between psychological and physical
illnesses’, (May 14th, 2008); Seacole was ‘a great pioneer and made a
significant contribution to nursing’ (May 30th, 2012). But it was
Nightingale who had faith in the power of nursing and changed the face
of modern nursing. The Nursing Standard gives not a single example of a serious contribution to the profession by Seacole, who never claimed to be a nurse.

‘Real angel’ of the Crimea

Bashing
white Victorian heroines is fair game these days, it seems, especially
those of privileged background and the higher the status the more
delightful the fall. The latest example, ‘Bringing Nightingale Down to
Size’, by a doctor regurgitating F.B. Smith’s imaginative accusations
was published in the British Medical Journal of March 2012.Florence Nightingale in 1856. Library of CongressTwo BBC films Florence Nightingale: Iron Maiden (2001) and Florence Nightingale
(2008) have taken the down-with-Nightingale message to wider audiences.
‘Nightingale’s nursing “helped kill soldiers”,’ repeated The Sunday
Times in a review of July 8th, 2001, while the 2008 film turned her into
‘The Liability with the Lamp’, (The Sunday Times, June 1st, 2008). Other BBC broadcasts, Mary Seacole: The Real Angel of the Crimea (screened on BBC Knowledge in 2000 and Channel 4 in 2005) and Mary Seacole: a Hidden History
(2008) uncritically sanctify Seacole. In the latter Seacole is called
the ‘real angel’ of the Crimean War, who ‘saved thousands of lives’.
It
is time to look at what these two women actually did and did not do in
the Crimean War, against what is claimed for and against them. Since
Seacole wrote a remarkable memoir, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands,
first published in 1857, we can read what she did in her own words
(page numbers below are from the 1988 Oxford edition, the same as in the
original edition). Nightingale left copious material on the war,
including numerous letters pointing out defects and recommending action.
We also have the carefully researched analyses done on her return,
notably her 853-page Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army
(1858) and her ‘Answers to Written Questions’ the same year, which was
her evidence to the royal commission appointed to inquire into what went
wrong in that war. These are reported extensively in Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War, volume 14 in the Collected Works of Florence Nightingale.

Seacole’s Crimean War

In
her memoir Seacole traces her interest in war to her Scottish soldier
father, which gave her sympathy with the ‘pomp, pride and circumstance
of glorious war’ (p.1). She next admitted to a longing to ‘witness’ war,
especially since regiments she knew in Jamaica were leaving for the
‘scene of action’ (p.73). When the war actually began in late September
1854 Seacole was in London to look after her gold-mining stocks (p.74).
Newspaper advertisements invited applications for nursing posts, but
Seacole never applied. Instead, after Nightingale and her 38 nurses had
left, she set out to join a later contingent of nurses, one Nightingale
knew nothing about. Seacole made the rounds of offices, beginning with
that of the junior war minister, Sidney Herbert, but he neither
interviewed nor hired nurses and declined to see her. She did not get an
interview anywhere else she tried, but whether or not for reasons of
race is not clear. She was old for hospital nursing, nearing 50, and had
had no hospital experience, despite the frequent claim that she ran the
nursing at an army hospital in Jamaica – not a claim she ever made
herself.
Seacole then decided to go on her own. She would set up
the ‘British Hotel’, which she advertised as a ‘mess table and
comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers’ (p.81). She had
used the name earlier at an establishment in Panama, but neither it nor
the Crimean establishment took overnight guests – both were restaurants
with stores. The Crimean venue also had a ‘canteen for the soldiery’
(p.114), no further details given. Seacole had a business partner in her
Crimean enterprise, Thomas Day, a relative of her late husband.In
May 1857 Punch mocked Seacole's worthiness for a fund in her name. 'Our
Own Vivandière' shows her, misleadingly, with a wounded soldier in
hospital.Seacole devotes chapters of her memoir to the
British Hotel in the Crimea, to its high-ranking visitors, including a
French prince, a duke and a viscount and the meals she served them. She
also recounted the challenges of obtaining supplies, unreliable
employees, rats and thieves. Clearly the British Hotel was her major
occupation, but she also did voluntary work, such as taking tea and
lemonade to soldiers waiting on the wharf for transport to the general
hospitals in Turkey.
Officers could get a meal at Seacole’s, or
send a servant to pick one up for them. Among the available items were
tins of salmon, lobsters, oysters, game, wild fowl, vegetables, eggs,
sardines, curry powder, coffee, currant jelly and non-food items such as
saddles and boots:

I often used to roast a score or
so of fowls daily, besides boiling hams and tongues. Either these or a
slice from a joint of beef or mutton you would be pretty sure of finding
at your service in the larder of the British Hotel. (p.138).

After
the war was effectively over, but before the peace treaty was signed,
she catered for excursions, cricket matches, picnics, theatricals,
dinner parties and races, providing soup and fish, turkeys, saddle of
mutton, fowls, ham, tongue, curry, pastry of many sorts, custards,
jelly, blancmange and olives. For Christmas there were plum puddings
(recipe provided) and mince pies. In hot weather she provided sangria,
claret and cider cups. On the last excursion described in her memoir she
brought a hamper of ‘a cold duck and other meats, a tart’ (p.190).
Seacole
described ‘the officers, full of fun and high spirits,’ crowding into
her kitchen and carrying off ‘the tarts hot from the oven, while the
good-for-nothing black cooks ... would stand by and laugh with all their
teeth’ (p.141). Her customers were officers and others of that class
and the food and drink provided far beyond the means of ordinary
soldiers. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in this, but there is in
the claim that her mission was to save the lives of ordinary soldiers,
which was in fact Nightingale’s mission.
One children’s book gives
such fake details as that Seacole ran a hospital alongside the shop and
restaurant, where she ‘nursed the soldiers from 5am until midday’ and
then to go onto the battlefield (Emma Lynch, The Life of Mary Seacole,
Heinemann, 2006). Another has her taking teams of nurses onto the
battlefield with her, after she had been rejected from nursing ‘because
of her race’ (Kay Barnham, Florence Nightingale: The Lady of the Lamp, White-Thomson 2002).
In
fact Seacole was present at only three battles, the Redan assaults on
June 18th and September 8th, 1855 and Tchernaya on August 16th. The
three major battles took place in the autumn of 1854, before she left
London: the Alma on September 20th,, Balaclava on October 25th and
Inkermann on November 5th 1854. Even those battles were only a day long;
the ones Seacole viewed were over in hours. Prior to Redan she had got a
brief glimpse of action when, on horseback, she accompanied Omar Pasha
and some Turks to a Russian outpost. She gave no further details as to
what happened in the battle, but judged the experience ‘pleasant enough’
and even the source of ‘strange excitement’ (p.147).
Visitors and
officers’ wives watched the (failed) assault on the Redan from nearby
Cathcart’s Hill. Seacole described getting wind of the first assault the
day before and preparing for it before daybreak: ‘We were all busily
occupied in cutting bread and cheese and sandwiches, packing up fowls,
tongues and ham, wine and spirits.’ These were loaded on two mules, ‘in
charge of my steadiest lad’. She herself led the way on horseback, with a
bag of lint, bandages, needles, thread and medicines. The British soon
retreated, so that freed-up officers became customers for her
refreshments. She then made her way to the temporary hospital (set up by
the army), where she assisted with the wounded waiting for admission.
There, her memoir states, she bound up wounds and gave cooling drinks.
The mules and the steady lad, meanwhile, had moved off. After she found
them and whipped the negligent boy she saw some more wounded, ‘with whom
I left refreshments’ (p.158).
All this shows Seacole to have been
spunky, generous and worthy of praise. But it does not demonstrate that
she worked as a nurse or that her actions saved thousands of lives.
Neither does it confirm her acceptance as a professional colleague by
doctors, as some have claimed. Her earlier ‘tea and lemonade’ gifts, she
herself noted, were ‘all the doctors would allow me to give to the
wounded’ (p.101).
In the Crimea, Seacole ran a business, as she
had throughout her life. Like her Jamaican mother, she owned and
operated a boarding house in Kingston, mainly for army and navy officers
and their wives. Neither ran an invalid hospital nor nursing station,
as is often stated. After she married Edwin Horatio Seacole in 1836 the
two ran a store together. On an earlier visit to Britain she had earned
her living by selling Jamaican preserves and pickles (p.3); while
travelling in the Bahamas she acquired shells and shell work to sell
back in Jamaica (p.5).

A doctress

In the Crimea, as in the
Caribbean, she pursued her vocation as a ‘doctress’, or traditional
Creole herbalist, alongside her business. She charged for her remedies,
but gave them free to those unable to pay. In Panama, where she lived
for over two years, she first helped her brother run his hotel, then
opened her own shop. She faced a cholera epidemic in a small outpost
where there was no doctor. She claimed some cures for her treatments,
but also ‘lamentable blunders’ and admitted that she shuddered when she
thought of some of those cures she had tried for cholera (p.31). She
describes adding ‘sugar of lead,’ the toxic lead acetate, to a cholera
remedy to make it work, a point that is not mentioned by her present-day
supporters. In fact we know nothing of the precise ingredients of her
cures, for she left no details. Claims such as those made in the film, Mary Seacole: A Hidden History,
that Seacole functioned not only as a nurse, but as a ‘very good
doctor’ and a ‘very intelligent pharmacist far in advance of British
medicine’ are sheer speculation.
In the Crimean War Seacole’s
‘patients’ were all walk-ins. The army sent its most serious cases to
the general hospitals, mostly under Nightingale, the less serious to
regimental hospitals. Men with lesser ailments such as headaches and
stomach complaints took themselves to the British Hotel. Seacole
describes leaving her food preparations in the kitchen to serve
‘patients’ in the store (p.125). Unlike any hospital, the British Hotel
closed nightly at 8pm and all day on Sunday (p.145).
Seacole’s
business did well for a year but went bankrupt when a peace treaty was
signed on March 30th, 1856 and the British Army began to depart. Seacole
had laid in expensive provisions which could be sold for only a
fraction of their outlay. She described taking a hammer to cases of red
wine, rather than let them be taken by the Russians (p.196). After the
war friends raised funds to enable her to start another business and she
briefly opened a store in Aldershot. However it, too, failed. Later a
trust fund was raised for her so that she could live at ease – she
returned to Jamaica, before finally settling in England in 1865.
Consistent with her census entry shortly before her death, showing that
she lived on independent means, her will shows her to have died
prosperous.
The Seacole campaign has not only changed her
occupation, but her race. She was three-quarters white and proud of her
‘Scotch blood’ (p.1). She had nothing good to say about her
African/Creole heritage, but made a point of distancing herself from the
‘lazy Creole’ image (p.2). Seacole refers to ‘Blacks’, ‘negroes’ and
‘niggers’, throughout her memoir, but she never uses any such word for
herself. She employed a black maid and the above-mentioned ‘good for
nothing black cooks’. In her own words: ‘I am only a little brown – a
few shades duskier than the brunettes whom you all admire so much.’
(p.4)
Seacole supporters have Nightingale living a life of safety
at her hospital in Turkey, far from the battlefield. True, she and her
nurses were 300 miles away, across the Bosphorus from Istanbul (then
Constantinople), at the hospitals to which the British Army sent them.
But these were dangerous places and many doctors and nurses died of
disease. Nightingale herself nearly succumbed to ‘Crimean fever’,
probably brucellosis, a disease not identified until the 1880s.
Her
barrack hospital at Scutari was then the largest in the world, but it
was never intended to be a hospital and lacked such basic necessities as
running water, functioning toilets, laundry and operating theatres. Its
sewers and drains were grossly defective, faults reported by doctors
months before Nightingale arrived. But renovations were not started
until March 1855, with the arrival of a sanitary commission headed by Dr
John Sutherland (1808-91) with Robert Rawlinson (1810-98), a leading
civil engineer and water expert, and James Newlands (1813-71), the
pioneering borough engineer of Liverpool, who supervised the clean up.
Both Sutherland and Rawlinson subsequently became Nightingale’s close
collaborators.
Nightingale’s hospital had a high death rate, but
so did all the army general hospitals. Contrary to statements by Hugh
Small, who did not use the full mortality statistics available in
Avenging Angel, the highest death rate was at Kulali and reported as
such by Dr Sutherland – a hospital not under Nightingale’s supervision
but nursed by the Irish Sisters of Mercy. They, no more than
Nightingale, should be held responsible for its death rates, for they,
too, were working where they were sent and should hardly be blamed for
the state of the sewers and drains. Nearly half the deaths from disease
in those hospitals were due to bowel diseases.
Frequently
unrecognised is the dirty work Nightingale took on as a result of those
defective sanitary arrangements. Her own report notes the flowing faeces
on the floor and the pertinent fact that the men generally had no shoes
or slippers. Tubs were provided in the wards for those who could not
walk to the toilet areas. Nightingale herself organised the orderlies in
the morning to remove the excreta. But this ‘underside of history’ is
simply ignored in both the book and film coverage of the war.
Nightingale’s
work during the war included hands-on nursing, the management of
nursing at several hospitals and writing to remonstrate with officials
back in England on the desperate conditions. She set up new systems,
established laundries and kitchens, reducing cross-infection and
improving nutrition. She did much to make the life of the ordinary
soldier better, including establishing coffee and reading rooms for
those convalescing after treatment. She also wrote to families informing
them of the deaths of loved ones. She did not save thousands of lives
during the war but her research and recommendations after it saved many
more. The honour of actually reducing death rates at the war hospitals
must go primarily to the sanitary commission and also to the supply
commission, headed by Sir John McNeill, another Nightingale ally, which
made the crucial improvements in nutrition, clothing and shelter.

Making a difference

The
sheer scale of the death rates of the Crimean War seems to have escaped
the notice of many commentators: 22.7 per cent of the troops sent by
the British Army died, 30.7 per cent of the French army. Firm data is
lacking for the Russians (and the Turks) but the figure is probably
higher. By comparison, the death rate in the US army during the Vietnam
War was 2.3 per cent.
The French were the instigators of the
Crimean War, sent more troops and were better prepared than the British.
Their death rates were lower in the first year. But the British
government learned from the commissions it sent out and made enormous
changes. British death rates fell dramatically, from 23 per cent in the
first winter to 2.5 per cent in the second – no greater than deaths
among soldiers in peacetime barracks in London, as Nightingale proudly
showed in a chart. In contrast, the French (lower) 11 per cent death
rate in the first winter, rose to 20 per cent in the second winter.
Since the French were late in publishing their statistics, neither
Nightingale nor the royal commission could use them for comparison.
However French doctors themselves credited the British reforms for their
superior performance. Once they were properly cleansed and functioning
Nightingale was proud of the Crimean hospitals. In her own charts she
separated the two periods, before and after the sanitary and supply
commissions, to emphasise the crucial role they played in reducing
mortality.
Her analysis of what went wrong was widely accepted and
led to major changes to health care in the British Army. The
‘Nightingale Fund’ raised in her honour for that work paid for the
training school at St Thomas’, which led to raising nursing to the level
of a profession throughout much of the world. Her experience of the
war, and her reputation and research as a result of it, grounded all the
social and public health work she did for the rest of her life. Her
vision for health reform included bold statements, such as the belief
that the poor should receive as good quality hospital care as private
patients and warnings as to the dangers of hospital acquired infections.
Nightingale, in short, is no mere historical figure. Her lamp should
not be retired but shone brightly onto the hospital and health care
problems of today.

Lynn McDonald is Emerita Professor of Sociology at the University of Guelph, Canada and author of The Early Origins of the Social Sciences (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press 1993)

Monday, September 10, 2012

(Reuters)
- Anti-Islam groups in America have provided financial support to Dutch
politician Geert Wilders, an anti-immigration campaigner who is seeking
re-election to the Dutch parliament this week.

While
this is not illegal in the Netherlands, it sheds light on the
international connections of Wilders, whose Freedom Party is the least
transparent Dutch parliamentary group and a rallying point for Europe's
far right.

Wilders'
party is self-funded, unlike other Dutch parties that are subsidised by
the government. It does not, therefore, have to meet the same
disclosure requirements.

Groups
in America seeking to counter Islamic influence in the West say they
funded police protection and paid legal costs for Wilders whose party is
polling in fourth place before the Sept 12 election.

Wilders'
ideas - calling for a total halt to non-Western immigration and bans on
Muslim headscarves and the construction of mosques - have struck a
chord in mainstream politics beyond the Netherlands. France banned
clothing that covers the face in April 2011 and Belgium followed suit
in July of the same year. Switzerland barred the construction of new
minarets following a referendum in 2009.

The
Middle East Forum, a pro-Israeli think tank based in Philadelphia,
funded Wilders' legal defence in 2010 and 2011 against Dutch charges of
inciting racial hatred, its director Daniel Pipes said. The Middle East
Forum has a stated goal, according to its website, of protecting the
"freedom of public speech of anti-Islamist authors, promoting American
interests in the Middle East and protecting the constitutional order
from Middle Eastern threats". It sent money directly to Wilders' lawyer
via its Legal Project, Pipes said.

Represented
by Dutch criminal lawyer Bram Moscowitz, Wilders successfully defended
himself against the charges, which were brought by prosecutors in
Amsterdam on behalf of groups representing minorities from Turkey,
Morocco and other countries with Muslim populations. The case heard in
October 2010 was filed in response to Wilders' comments in the Dutch
media about Muslims and his film "Fitna", which interlays images of
terrorist attacks with quotations from the Koran and prompted protests
by Muslims in Islamic countries worldwide. The court found he had stayed
within the limits of free speech.

Wilders
said in an emailed statement that his legal expenses were paid for with
the help of voluntary donations from defenders of freedom of speech. "I
do not answer questions of who they are and what they have paid. This
could jeopardize their safety," Wilders said.

VISITS TO THE UNITED STATES

Wilders,
49, became a member of Dutch parliament in 2006, campaigning against
Islam, which he calls a threat to Dutch culture and Western values. He
called Islam a violent political ideology and vowed never to enter a
mosque, "not in 100,000 years". His' party gained 24 seats in the
150-seat lower house in June 2010.

He
has been under 24-hour security for eight years after receiving death
threats from radical Muslim groups in the Netherlands and abroad.
Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik cited anti-Islamic comments by
Wilders in an online manifesto that sought to justify his crimes.
Wilders has denounced Breivik and his actions.

David
Horowitz, who runs a network of Los Angeles-based conservative groups
and a website called FrontPage magazine, said he paid Wilders fees for
making two speeches, security costs during student protests and
overnight accommodation for his Dutch bodyguards during a 2009 U.S.
trip.

Horowitz
said he paid Wilders for one speech in Los Angeles and one at Temple
University in Philadelphia. He declined to specify the amounts, but said
that Wilders had received "a good fee." When Wilders' Philadelphia
appearance sparked student protests, Horowitz said, he paid a special
security fee of about $1,500 to the Philadelphia police department.
Horowitz said he also paid for overnight accommodation for four or five
Dutch government bodyguards accompanying Wilders on the trip.

Wilders
said in response: "I am frequently asked to speak abroad. Whenever
possible I accept these invitations. I never ask for a fee. However,
sometimes the travel and accommodation expenses are paid. My personal
security is always paid for by the Dutch government."

Pipes
and Horowitz denied funding Wilders' political activities in Holland.
Both run non-profit, tax exempt research and policy organizations which,
under U.S. tax laws, are forbidden from giving direct financial backing
to any political candidate or party. U.S. law does allow such groups to
support policy debates financially.

During
Wilders' visit to Los Angeles, where Horowitz runs an organization
called the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Horowitz said he organised an
event at which Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed were
auctioned. He said he did not remember how much money this event raised
or what happened to the proceeds.

Horowitz
agreed with the Dutchman's repeated, public comparison of the Koran to
Hitler's Mein Kampf. Comparing the two works was a "fair analogy,"
Horowitz said. He said Wilders was "fighting the good fight."

Horowitz
said U.S. backers helped Wilders raise money to pay legal fees to fight
a ban from visiting Britain in 2009, where he planned to screen Fitna.
The British government said at the time: "The Government opposes
extremism in all its forms. The decision to refuse Wilders admission was
taken on the basis that his presence could have inflamed tensions
between our communities and have led to inter-faith violence."

Wilders won an appeal in the British courts in October 2009 when the ban was overturned.

Wilders
has other supporters in the United States, such as Pamela Geller, who
runs Stop Islamization of America and has backed Wilders in public
statements. Geller remains a supporter. She says she does not provide
Wilders with financial assistance.

Wilders
has not revealed how his political activities are paid for. Freedom
Party officials have said he has no personal funds and almost entirely
relies on foreign donations. Like other Dutch political parties, members
of parliament for the Freedom Party have been allocated 165,000 euros
($211,200) per year for expenses. Former Freedom Party officials
speaking on condition of anonymity said the money, nearly 4 million
euros per year, went to the party and has not been accounted for.

Wilders
said in his emailed response that former Freedom Party officials making
such allegations were bitter and spiteful. "These people have other
motives than telling the truth," he said.

"Our
party has a sixty euro annual budget. The rumours about millions of
euros in sponsoring are complete nonsense. A Freedom Party-related
foundation receives donations from Dutch or foreign sources, but these
are modest amounts of money and certainly never millions," it continued.

The
Dutch government turned down requests for additional information about
Freedom Party finances. "I do not possess relevant information or
documents" about the Freedom party finances or campaign contributions
because the party does not receive subsidies, Dutch Minister for
Internal Affairs Liesbeth Spies said in a written response.

I hear there are several nationalists going along to have a quiet word with Pete Barker at the meeting.
This is Petes annual contribution to the cause of saving our nation, a
far from dynamic speech about his failings in nationalism.
I would think there are several on here who would like to say hello, hey FYC!

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

World's richest woman calls for Australian workers to be paid $2 a day to compete with companies hiring cheap African staff

Comments received criticism by PM Julia Gillard who insists cheap labour is 'not the Australian way'

The richest woman in the world warned her fellow countrymen they are becoming too expensive to employ.Mining
tycoon Gina Rinehart said it is becoming too costly for multinational
companies who could hire workers for two dollars a day in Africa.The
58-year-old said in a video address yesterday that businesses are
forced to look to other nations as the price for Australian labour is
too high, something which was immediately criticised by Prime Minister
Julia Gillard.

Speaking from the hart: Gina Rinehart served up
some harsh critique of the Australian government in her ten-minute long
video address to the Sydney Mining Club

In her ten-minute long video for the Sydney Mining Club, Gina Rinehart said Australia must become more competitive.Ms Rinehart, head of resources giant
Hancock Prospecting, blamed the government's mining and carbon taxes,
red tape and high wages for the economy's 'sluggish' performance.

‘The evidence is unarguable, Australia is indeed becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to
do export-oriented business,’ she said.‘Furthermore, Africans want to work,
and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such
statistics make me worry for this country's future.’

Too expensive: Ms Rinehart said she was
concerned about Australian jobs when African workers were available at a
much cheaper cost

Richest in the world: Gina pictured in 1982
with her father Lang Hancock whose empire she inherited, making her the
richest woman in the world

Gina Rinehart is not averse to
controversial statements. As recently as last week, she hit the
headlines when she told Australians to ‘spend less time drinking or
smoking and socialising, and more time working’.

Her comments on Wednesday drew immediate criticism from Prime Minister Julia Gillard.‘It's not the Australian way to toss people $2, to toss them a gold coin, and then ask them to work for a day.‘We support proper Australian wages and decent working conditions.’Ms Rinehart also attacked the
Australian government, accusing them of not being competitive enough on
the international markets, and added: ‘If we competed at the Olympic
Games as sluggishly as we compete economically there would be an
outcry.’Her outburst came a day after iron ore
giant Fortescue announced it would defer planned developments.Last month
BHP Billiton shelved its multi-billion dollar expansion of
the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine.Australian mining projects have faced
headwinds from depressed conditions in Europe and the United States,
softening growth in China and increased competition from other producers
as well as falling commodity prices.The price of iron ore, a crucial
ingredient in steelmaking, has fallen dramatically in the past two
months as the Chinese economy slows, while the price of coal, another
major Australian export, has also dropped sharply.Prime Minister Gillard insisted that Australia would continue to be competitive in mining.'We're going to compete on our great
mineral deposits, our application of technology and high skills to the
task. We mine differently than in other countries,' she said.